By Tom Noda
US-based business process outsourcing company TDS Global Solutions (TDS) has picked the Philippines as its operating center as part of its rebranding strategy to broaden its foothold in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
Executives of TDS, formerly known as TeleDevelopment Services, revealed the company’s strategy recently during its formal corporate rebranding event held at the Fairmont hotel in Makati City.
The announcement coincided with the 10th anniversary of its local facility located in Ortigas Center, Pasig City. The event was attended by TDS’s clients and guests from both government and private sectors in Broadway-inspired formal attire.
TDS president and CEO Jon Kaplan said making Philippines as their operations hub will create more skilled jobs in back-office support, investing on human resources, IT, and financial services.
Kaplan, together with TDS’s new chairman Jack Freker, and Filipina chief operating officer Judy Whisenhunt, said that the company’s goals in the country for the next 10 years include the expansion of new geographies, added support for the healthcare industry, to be a provider of analytics solutions, among others.
Kaplan cited studies that by end-2014, around a million people will be employed in the Philippine BPO space and that by end-2016, the industry will generate revenues more than the cash remittances from overseas Filipino workers or OFWs, which reportedly reached $22.8 billion in 2013.
Freker, a former president of Convergys, said TDS is determined to support the country’s BPO growth.
“In America, healthcare is creating mayhem. From 25,000 medical codes it is now up to 75,000 codes and we’re here to support that. We will also speed up the acquisition and retention of employees and we have a whole set of virtual solutions,” Freker said.
Kaplan added TDS is now giving greater focus on both voice and non-voice business process management.
The company?s parent company, TDS Global Holdings, also has under it firms such as TDS Global Solutions, TeleDevelopment Philippines and BPO CareerHub.
“Our mission is to reach, teach, and hire,” Kaplan said, noting TDS is growing and adding more services to its repertoire such as Versant Writing Test, Medical Coding Training and Management Certification programs, operations audits, enhanced payroll processing services, organizational development programs and powered up public training catalogue.
According to Whisenhunt, TDS will set up satellite offices in the National Capital Region, Cebu and Bacolod in Visayas and also Mindanao. The core operations will be in Metro Manila.
Kaplan said TDS Philippines has assisted high-profile BPO and call center companies in the past 10 years when he decided to set up a Philippine presence in Ortigas Center, after having been providing BPO services to the country since 1999.
Among TDS’s past clients were Teleperformance, Accenture, Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Transcom, Convey Health Solutions, and Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS), among others that developed successful operations in the Philippines.
A new website featuring TDS’s new visual identity is set to be launched later in the second quarter.
